Music: Iranian tar player at American Islamic Congress iftar on Newbury St. (Boston)

The other night I had the opportunity to attend my second iftar of 2012 at the American Islamic Congress over on Newbury Street in Boston. This was a community iftar (the previous one I attended had the theme of South Asian) that welcomed a graduate student from Northeastern who demonstrated his fine tar skills. The tar is an important and popular Persian instrument with very fine strings. In fact tar ( تار) itself means ‘string’ in Persian. The evening was topped-off with some delicious Persian food. I was lucky to have chatted with an Egyptian-born photographer who had her exceptional photographs of Ramadan in Egypt displayed on the walls, a young American student who just came back from studying in Kuwait for the State Department, and a half-Persian, half-Pakistani man who discussed with me the importance of the Abrahamic tradition in interfaith dialogue. All-in-all, it was a great evening with my Muslim and non-Muslim neighbours. Just as I had expected!